


A Year to the Day

by TwoCatsTailoring



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Post-Game, Spoilers, after the dawn, after the game, coping as best they can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:02:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10023932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoCatsTailoring/pseuds/TwoCatsTailoring
Summary: Everyone moves on in their own ways, and sometimes in order to move on you have to let go of the small things that hold you back.





	

A year to the day After The Dawn, the land known as Insomnia has had 3 provisional governments, one of which tried to make a king out of Cor (that one lasted a week, Cor put it down himself.) The current provisional government is a Senate and it is wise, representative, and the most reasonable of the three. It’ll probably stick.

Gladio and his lovely bride, who have recently welcomed their first child, have been ‘married’ three times: once by the first provisional government of Insomnia, then by Lestallum law when that began to fall apart, then by a transfer of documents under the Senate. They think it is hilarious.

Prompto has set up camp at Hammerhead, he’s just more comfortable there, surrounded by machines that don’t think or feel or talk or want him to talk. And he’s just not ready for that. He’s guilty of avoiding Gladio and Ignis both, but Cindy, bro that she is, has asked them not to push him. Iggy has an easier time of it than Gladio, but he tries.

Ignis, much to his own dismay, has been called on by every single provisional government to advise them in terms of policy and procedures. When approached by the Cor For King people, his patience was wearing thin enough that he actually told them, and I quote, “That is the most idiotic bunch of fuckwittery I’ve ever heard.” and laughed them out of his office.

But they meet, by agreement in the days just after Dawn, a year to the day. At Noctis’s real tomb. The one out behind Hammerhead, nestled against the Insomnian Wall that is built into the mountainside. Just before dawn the three of them meet there.

They exchange small talk, have a few beers. Toast their brother.-in-arms, their King. And once they all fall silent, after the sun has risen and is glaring harshly on the horizon, Prompto sits back in his chair and says, “I’ve got this idea.”

“I’m gonna do it, but you guys don’t have to.” Cause Prompto is nothing if not fair to other people. Always has been.

“But, I’m not gonna wear black anymore. It feels wrong, ya know? I mean,” he’s doing that thing with his hands, you know the one. When he’s nervous.

“It was a symbol, right? And I know it’s not anymore and that it doesn’t matter to anyone else, but it kinda does to me.”

All Ignis can hear is the deep intake of breath and the little hitch in it but Gladio can see Prompto starting to crumple.

“Okay,” it’s so stupid, he sounds 12, with his voice cracking like that, “It really does to me.”

Ignis is lost for a minute - he usually manages to stay connected to the here and now really well but sometimes it’s hard not to float back to the pictures his brain remembers. And he’s lost for a minute, wondering if this is the same boy - they were all nothing but boys then, to think otherwise is to be blind in more than a physical sense - who shone his way through nearly every single trial they all went through.

It’s a fleeting thing, but it’s still there. Because Ignis remembered them all as they were. And the grown men are superimposed personalities over what he knows are incorrect mental images. The dichotomy is startling.

“That’s,” Gladio sighs and looks down at his hands, “A really good idea. I’m all for it.”

Because it is pointless, he’s learned the hard way. Everything is pointless really. They all grew up (well, maybe not Prompto) knowing exactly what was expected of them. Futures mapped out, everything laid out in duty and honor and plain black and white. Walk the lines you were given because you were made for those tasks. Easy, predictable, reliable. But nothing was reliable, was it? Not really. Well, maybe change was reliable.

“I agree.”

Hearing Gladio agree was one thing. One surprising thing and Prompto got shaken out of what was surely going to be a waterfall of tears by it. But somehow, having Ignis agree lended some kind of… legitimacy? 

Well, whatever it was when Ignis said anything it always sounded completely sane so Prompto bit off an apology for being stupid that was in the middle of his tongue and opted for an, “Okay.”

An hour or so later, a signal flare went up over Hammerhead - a blue one so as to not alarm anyone who might see it. So many red ones went up in the Ruin Years, anything even remotely orange would cause a cascade of people to descent on Cindy and try to rescue the garage. It didn’t need rescuing, it just needed it’s wayward boys to come, because breakfast was ready.


End file.
